Recently I've noticed this issue with the OpenLayers plugin Google satellite layer where the imagery is dark and of a lower-resolution than it used to be.
I frequently use this imagery with information layers on top for presentation purposes - and recently noticed that the City of Toronto (Canada) is looking far worse than it did a short while ago. Does anyone know why this may be?
I've included a screen shot to better highlight my concern (notice that outside of the City the quality is how it used to be).
I am using QGIS Wien 2.8.2.